beyond urban expansion

Beyond Urban Expansion:

Challenges and Opportunities for Urban

Sustainability

Weiqi Zhou

Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Outline

Urbanization in China

Data gaps and critical research needs

Effective mechanisms for strengthening the

science-policy interface

Percent of Urban Population from 1950-2050

1978: 166.5 M (17.9%)

2018: 813 .4 M (59.6%)

2030: 1 Billion (65%)

Urban expansion in China: Rapid, massive, regionally uneven

Developed land increased by > 80,000 km2

Urban population increased by 640 M

2000 2015

Shenzhen: from a fishery town to a megacity with more than 20M people in 40 years


1979 1985 1990 1992

1995 1997 2000 2002

2005 2010 2015 20172019

Urban expansion in China for 2000-2015: Large spatial variations

NochangeSlightMediumVeryrapidDramatic

Regions 2000(%) 2015(%) Change(%)

West 0.44 0.64 0.20

Centre 4.54 5.96 1.42 East 8.16 11.75 3.59

North-east 2.40 2.70 0.30


Urban megaregions as a “new” form of urbanization

Beyond urban expansion: New characteristics of contemporary urbanization in China

2015

Existing cities, expanding suburbs, and new urban settlements and

infrastructures have been gradually knitting into urban megaregions.

2000 1990 19801990

Yangtze River Delta

Urban megaregions as a “new” form of urbanization


The potential environmental risks of forming urban megaregions warrant further research.

“National New-Type Urbanization Plan” (2014): urban megaregion or urban agglomeration would be the main type of urban spatial form in the next decade (Fang et al. 2016).

Planned for five national, nine regional, and six sub-regional urban megaregions

Environmental impacts of emerging Urban Megaregions

With the emergence of urban megaregions, environmental problems at

the city scale expanded to the region level, and gradually became

regional issues.

Environmental impacts of emerging Urban Megaregions

Increasingly become a regional issue: The size of urban heat islands are expanding, and gradually forming urban heat “archipelagos”.

Land surface temperature in Yangtze River Delta megaregion

201020052000

2010

A shift from “urban expansion” to “Internal optimization (urban renewal)”：“增量扩张” 到“存量优化”

The parcel next to RCEES (8/2/2008) The parcel next to RCEES (9/15/2012)


Land under construction in Shanghai

Greenspace change from

2005-2010 in Beijing

2010


Internal DynamicsTotal # of patches

# of Patches under-construction

Total Areas under-construction

30176 2155 810km2 82km2

A shift from “urban expansion” to “Internal optimization (urban renewal)”：Challenges and opportunities


Much less is known about the ecological consequences of internal dynamics.

Internal city dynamics may possess ecological challenges such as loss of

native species, generating noise, and temporally increasing air pollution.

Such changes also provide enormous opportunities to introduce sustainable

technologies and practices to make the city greener, more livable, resilient,

and energy and resource efficient.

Move beyond urban expansion to understand the ecological consequences of internal city dynamics

Data gaps and critical research needs

Too much data, not enough information. So much earth observation

data has been archived and collected every data, one of the challenges is how

to convert data into information, particularly “useful” information.

Data gaps: We have lots of biophysical data from earth observation, but

lack of social-economic data, especially at fine-scale.

Data gaps: Lack of fine-scale social-economic data in Chinese cities

1 2 3 4 5

1

23

4

5

Gaps between science and policy-making

Towards knowledge co-production Policymakers need more actionable knowledge that

are immediately relevant and easy to use, so that science-based policies can be designed and effectively implemented, especially at the local scale.

How much we can offer? Is it relevant?

From: www.msfhr.org

Move beyond transdisciplinary knowledge co-production: Working together with managers and decision-makers to co-develop new science and tools for urban sustainability.

From: www.ageing.ox.ac.uk

Towards knowledge co-production

Linking research to urban planning and management

Very Important

ImportantMediumAverage

Legend

Importance for

biodiversity

conservation

Very Important

ImportantMediumAverage

Legend

Importance for

Water resource

protection

AverageMedium

ImportantVery Important

Mountain

Legend

Importance for

groundwater

protection

Very Important

ImportantAverage

Legend

Importance for

sandstorm

prevention

ExtremelyVery

ImportantImportantAverage

Legend

Importance for soil conservation

ExtremelyVery sensitive

SensitiveSlightly Average

Legend

Sensitivity to

Soil Loss

Very Important

ImportantAverage

Legend

Importance for

cultural

landscape

protection

Land use master plan of Beijing

(2004 – 2020)

Ecosystem Service ZoningScenicBeauty

(LandscapeAesthetics)

LakeandWetlandArea(WaterStorage)

HumanComfort(LocalClimateRegulation)

WaterQuality(WaterPurification)

AirQuality(DustControl)

StrongStrengthofInfluence: Weak NotConfirmednorDisconfirmed

LandscapeAesthetics WaterStorage WaterPollution HumanComfort

Ecosystem service zoning to support the land use master plan of Beijing

Ecological Restoration of the YongdingRiver Corridor

Developing new tools to support urban planning and management

Towards knowledge co-production

Urban sustainability is a never-ending journey, and working together we can make change happen.

beyond urban expansion

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